Tag: Christianity

“If they served their God as they have served their Pork King…” (4)

March 14, 2021

Chesterton says of Christians “…if they had served their God as they have served their Pork King and their Petrol King, the success of our whole Distributive democracy would stare at the world like one of their flaming sky signs and scrape the sky like one of their crazy towers.” (p. 123, The Outline of Sanity) Part 2 of this book includes discussion of how Christians actually think about topics like capitalism, socialism, and Distributism, and how Chesterton wishes they’d think. Characters like the “old gentleman” and the “poor old clergyman” show how focusing on the favored target (socialism) or simply living in an imaginary world (the land of competitive capitalism) keep many such characters in a situation that amounts to giving up and rolling over. … More “If they served their God as they have served their Pork King…” (4)

“If they served their God as they have served their Pork King…” (4-Video)

March 14, 2021

Chesterton says of Christians “…if they had served their God as they have served their Pork King and their Petrol King, the success of our whole Distributive democracy would stare at the world like one of their flaming sky signs and scrape the sky like one of their crazy towers.” (p. 123, The Outline of Sanity) Part 2 of this book includes discussion of how Christians actually think about topics like capitalism, socialism, and Distributism, and how Chesterton wishes they’d think. Characters like the “old gentleman” and the “poor old clergyman” show how focusing on the favored target (socialism) or simply living in an imaginary world (the land of competitive capitalism) keep many such characters in a situation that amounts to giving up and rolling over. … More “If they served their God as they have served their Pork King…” (4-Video)

Where did Christians go wrong? A conversation w/ Spencer Hess on The Enchantments of Mammon (1-Video)

January 2, 2021

In this first part of our recent conversation, Spencer and I discuss what we took away from Eugene McCarraher’s The Enchantments of Mammon. I did a series on this book not long ago, and I”ll put the playlist in a link below. We discuss the question of where Christianity started going wrong, McCarraher’s adoption of Romanticism, his preference for socialism and socialism’s compatibility with Christianity, and his even greater preference for some sort of Christian anarchism. What is the role of the church in creating community–and why doesn’t the church do it well? And we don’t mean getting together for a book club or coffee klatsch. … More Where did Christians go wrong? A conversation w/ Spencer Hess on The Enchantments of Mammon (1-Video)

Mises, Hayek, Rand, Friedman: Prophets of Another Faith (McCarraher 9-Audio)

November 15, 2020

Inspired by Chapter 26 of Eugene McCarraher’s The Enchantments of Mammon entitled “The New Testament of Capitalism,” I focus on the intellectuals whose ideas undergird the faith in the “free market.” Taking both the concept of faith and what these thinkers said seriously, it’s hard to miss that their perspective runs counter to the faith of people of the book (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) because it enchants the market with godlike and irresistible “laws of nature” and promises to solve all the world’s problems. Neoliberal capitalism is another ideology that, because it is ultimately a human invention, cannot deliver the grandiose benefits it promises, and yet requires of its believers more unquestioning reverence than any truly transcendent power asks of them. … More Mises, Hayek, Rand, Friedman: Prophets of Another Faith (McCarraher 9-Audio)

What if Matter Is Sacred? Conversation with Jakob Hanschu on Arts and Crafts Movement (McCarraher 7-Audio)

October 25, 2020

In a discussion that launches from Part 4 of McCarraher’s The Enchantments of Mammon, especially the part on the Arts and Crafts movement and its preoccupation with beauty, we get into the question of how to view human labor and the material world. McCarraher’s sacramental view of nature informs a discussion of whether and how it is realistic and beneficial to see matter as sacred. What would it mean for Christianity and other religions if we did? What would it mean for work and for the economy?
… More What if Matter Is Sacred? Conversation with Jakob Hanschu on Arts and Crafts Movement (McCarraher 7-Audio)

What if Matter Is Sacred? Conversation with Jakob Hanschu on Arts and Crafts Movement (McCarraher 7-Video)

October 25, 2020

In a discussion that launches from Part 4 of McCarraher’s The Enchantments of Mammon, especially the part on the Arts and Crafts movement and its preoccupation with beauty, we get into the question of how to view human labor and the material world. McCarraher’s sacramental view of nature informs a discussion of whether and how it is realistic and beneficial to see matter as sacred. What would it mean for Christianity and other religions if we did? What would it mean for work and for the economy? … More What if Matter Is Sacred? Conversation with Jakob Hanschu on Arts and Crafts Movement (McCarraher 7-Video)

Does the Corporate God Love Us? (McCarraher 5-Audio)

September 26, 2020

Drawing from Part 3 of Eugene McCarraher’s The Enchantments of Mammon, I take a good look at the way evangelical Christians in the late 19th century put God and Mammon on the same level. The corporation was raised to the dignity of a human person in U.S. law, begging the question of whether anyone who believes that can really adequately respect human life as “made in the image and likeness of God.” … More Does the Corporate God Love Us? (McCarraher 5-Audio)

Medieval Radicals? Fighting the Enchantments of Mammon (2-Audio)

August 29, 2020

We begin to get into Eugene McCarraher’s book The Enchantments of Mammon with the first chapter, in which he surveys the development of two kinds of Christianity, the kind that’s comfortable alongside wealth and the kind that isn’t. Throughout Christian history, before and after the Protestant Reformation, both types are to be found struggling to define Christian faith and practice. With the Protestant Reformation we see an attempt to sacramentalize work and productivity, replacing older more obviously enchanted Catholic eucharistic sacramentality. … More Medieval Radicals? Fighting the Enchantments of Mammon (2-Audio)

Bureaucratic Dominance: Christopher Lasch on Controlled Labor (3-Video)

July 12, 2020

This video covers chapters 2 and 3 of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism. We explore why the strong narcissist is likely to work their way up the bureaucratic ladder in corporations and government service, and why, since bureaucracy is clearly not efficient, we insist on bureaucratic “rationality.” I also discuss Lasch’s ideas regarding detachment from a sense of time and from immediate experience, which robs people of life, and I introduce Lasch’s views on the origins of all this in the twisted turns of Protestant Christian development in the United States. … More Bureaucratic Dominance: Christopher Lasch on Controlled Labor (3-Video)